Yep! I’m doing it, this is 25% (EDIT 3/22! 33% now) of the whole enchilada. Here’s the direct link to the PDF, and it’s in the Script Archive page. First draft but I’m happy with how it’s going.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Reddit, GoIntoTheStory, etc. about the fate of spec scripts (unagented, unasked for), and it’s both encouraging and discouraging. The encouraging parts are:

From /r/screenwriting: Everyone wants to be associated with a good script. They want to be the one who said, “I found that, I got that to Producer X, etc.” So, and now you can see for yourself, I think it’s going well, which puts me at an advantage there. Also, 90% of everything is crap 🙂 and I, being a literate individual who already tells stories for a living, am thus already ahead of 90% of the competition.

There are tons of places to send scripts now – not just the Black List but other sites like it (and they all seem to be infighting but never mind), all kinds of competitions (the biggest one, the Nicholl, is out because it’s “no adaptations”), and Amazon even has a screenwriting software cloud program where, when you’re done, you just push a button and sub it to Amazon’s in-house production company.

A good script getting noticed, even if it’s not saleable (see below), is a “calling card” that shows the industry you can write a screenplay – that is, you can do story, you can do dialogue, you don’t pack your narrative sections with purple prose, you adhere to classical arcs, your characters are loveable or at least likeable, etc.

The down sides:

Nobody’s buying romance scripts. They’ll adapt bestselling romance books, but there are no romance specs being sold. And this is gay, and a romance. So it’s fucked.

All the pros on /r/screenwriting say that even if you make a sale, it’ll be geologic ages of time before you get paid. Figures, just like Big Book Publishing, right?

Sort of a down side, for me, right now: If someone does notice your script, but they’re not gonna film it, they might say, “What else do you have.” Er, um, I hadn’t thought that far ahead… The only thing I can think is to take “Grifterella,” one of the novels-within-a-novel in Apollo’s Curse, and turn it into a romcom.

According to the Black List blog, here’s what sold last year in the spec script department (I eliminated the ones like Westerns that I’m not gonna consider doing):

DRAMA — 24

Thriller — 6

Historical — 3

Romance — 1 DANGER WILL ROBINSON JUST FUCKING ONE.

COMEDY — 18

Action — 3

Romantic — 3

Adventure — 1

THRILLER — 13

Spy — 1

ACTION — 10

SCIENCE FICTION — 8

So, Grifterella, which I can make into a Romancing the Stone-type script. Action, comedy, romance. Bam. Check out Apollo’s Curse if you’re curious 🙂